The Chairman (Or, The Cathedral's Victory)

A chairman closes the doors to the Generic First Small Southern Reformed Baptist Church of Bumpkinville and locks them for the last time; faced with debt they could not repay and a failing ministry, the congregation stayed until the last service. Heartfelt goodbyes were said as the community of twenty wondered where they would go next. In their heyday their ministry centered around going to college campuses and proclaiming Christ's justice and the necessity of repentance, and for these years their only source of encouragement was each other and Christ Himself.


The chairman sighed as he looked over the building, its roof sagging under the weight of neglect, its walls and windows cracked and unrepaired. The last ten years had been frightening, as the community watched their building's various accouterments languish away – initially a light fixture in a corner nobody went in, but then the water fountain broke, then the sound system. The summers had been especially brutal, as the air conditioning system simply couldn't keep pace with the swelter outside. Rev. Pastor IV followed with the same fire as his father, inspiring the congregants more and more. The chairman, the youngest on the board, came to the church because it was the only SSRBC in the area, but admitted to his family he felt out of place in the building. He had much greater views as to what the building could be used for, and how to reach out, but the other chairmen denied him due to his youth; he was the man who did the paper work. The congregants were thankful for his work, but never gave him deference.


A tear came to his eye when he recalled the time one of the congregants found freedom from alcoholism. She had been plagued by the issue for much of her life, and was finding it increasingly difficult to live normally. The pastor, a usually aggressive and boisterous man, walked into the room where the chairman was comforting her and sat down, telling her how Christ had given him freedom in his sexual addiction and drug dependency in the 70's. The chairman thought it sounded trite, rehearsed; he had heard a bit of the pastor's story before, and this followed what he said, but the chairman didn't think the man was helping. He was surprised, then, when the woman broke into tears, saying that the pastor said exactly what she needed to hear. She embraced the man, and they both cried into each other.


The chairman was perplexed; this one memory was the only happy moment he could remember as this church. Worship was a drag every week for him, every week for the last eight years since he stopped feeling anything in it. He kept thinking about that memory, and wondered what it was. He never heard God, aside from that one time when he came to Christ, but he needed to ask the question,


“Why did this place exist, God? These people lived for you, and you let this place languish away in disrepair. Their ministry was saving people left and right. So many people have been saved by what the pastor's said at services. Why am I happy this place is finally gone, and why do I feel so hollow?”


The silence dragged on for hours, as the chairman sat on the front steps to the decrepit building and the sun sank below the horizon. He had faded into sleep, and dreamt of the church. God was there, sitting next to him. The chairman balked and babbled, trying to find words to say. The Almighty chuckled and put a finger on his mouth, silencing him with a slight, comforting hush sound. He smiled and said, “It is time to repair the Church, my beloved.”


The Savior of the World then beckoned the chairman to follow Him around the building; its ancient stucco and brick hodgepodge showed its age, as cracks rent open long ago as vines pushed in and broke them apart further. Jesus began to grip each brick individually and strongly, His muscles pulling and shoving against His skin blatantly. Starting in the very corner, the Redeemer moved each brick into its original position, cleaning and remaking them to be as-new. This process went on as the days blew past in the dream, hours eating away. The chairman thought nothing would sound valid in the face of all the Glory shining before him, and had began mumbling the start of sentences, only to be cowed by his own uncertainty. El Shaddai looked up from His work, knowing what the chairman wanted to say, and said, “Speak, beloved; I am here for you, and rejoice in your dialogue.”


The chairman, still very uncertain, stammered, “God... gracious Savior... Why are you repairing this building? The congregants are all gone, the building's bankrupt and worthless. We've failed you.”


“A great question, but I know there is more you need to say, child. Speak your mind, heir,” the Almighty spoke.


“I don't wish to speak ill of You in front of You... but where were You when this church needed funds? Our ministry was bringing people to You, Heavenly Father, we loved you! And yet, this building was allowed by You to degrade and languish, the congregation was allowed by You to diminish and shrink, the ministry was allowed by YOU to become less and less potent, and die. We did Your work, why did You allow all this to die? We were bringing dozens to YOU! And now we're dead!”


“Child, there is much to learn. Here, help me in my work. I believe this part we both need to work on to usher it to completion.” The Almighty took the chairman's hands to the glass shards on the lowest window, and together the Savior and the chairman pushed the shards out into the center; the glass joined seamlessly, extra glass coming from the edges of the cracked pane. The chairman understood what he was doing, and got to repairing the lowest areas with this new found ability of his. He was lost in it, and soon He and the Father had completed all they could reach on the floor.


The chairman left and came back with a ladder, but dropped it when he saw Elohim knelt down on the wall... on the wall. The chairman walked up surprised and asked for an explanation. “I turned water to wine, walked on water, and defeated the grave. I am not made accountable to gravity, beloved,” He said, smiling as he returned to the work on the upper windows. The chairman joined Christ again in His work.


“There is something you need to know, child. I know you feel the ministry at your community was less effective than it needed to be, and I know why. You looked to the ministry for the saving and the ability, but you never looked to Me. Your church ends at these bricks and mortar, but I am here to expand your view. Come, that's the last brick. Very well done; let's go inside and deal with the rafters and insulation.”


Entering the church, the chairman was taken aback; it was in much worse disrepair than he left it, just the day before. “All will be made known in time, love,” Elyon explained, then picked up the parts of a pew that had fallen apart. The two helped each other piece together the sawdust and tattered hymnals as The Alpha and Omega continued:


“These pews don't seem to have been sat in, in quite a very long while. Look, this brochure is from 1993”, I AM said as He passed the brochure over. It struck the chairman deep when he looked it over; he remembered this one well. It was a very hot July day, and the pastor (then Rev. Pastor III) was inflamed in greater passion than the chairman had seen before in his life. But the chairman wasn't listening. He just didn't feel anything in the pastor's sermons anymore. But the church needed him desperately, so he stayed. He wrote on the brochure, “God be with this church”.


Tears came again to the man's eyes as he glared at the Creator and said, “Why? You torture me with this reminder of the failure of you and the church.”


“Child, you still don't see. Here, up on the rafters. Those lights need replacing. That church indeed was integral to my plan in this city, and it has run its course. But my work is not done. I'm not interested in the churches that you can build and house. I'm here for the global one, you understand that, I know you do.”


“Oh Maker, why then did you plan for this church to die? This city only has one. Now it has none,” the chairman said.


“You still don't understand, child. Your church is not dead. The people who went to the church you just closed may not come back, but they are saved because of my presence in that church. Nothing said in that building that effected someone else was spoken by humans, but by Me through them.”


“So You give the saving, and not the pastor. Yes, I understand. But why have I never thought of that before? It seems like I know this, and it's common knowledge, yet I’ve never put it into words,” the chairman said, pausing in his thoughts.


“It is a mystery My children deal with, that they have things set in their minds without thinking, and things of profound nature stay just below the surface. There we go, this looks like a proud temple again. Come child, let us go back outside. There is something you need to see.”


The chairman and the King of Kings went back outside,the chairman babbling about his recent epiphany. “So, the whole world is Your cathedral, and You are the only one who saves, and there's no ministry who has that ability, but it is You and You alone who carries that, and it's not me or the pastor who saves people, but it's You through he and I...” the chairman continued as he and the Divine Being ascended the church again. As they walked on the wall, the chairman didn't notice the unusually high wall until they were well past where the wall should end.


He stopped and looked down. The red, faded brick was now golden; a facade of such glory as he has never seen before. The chairman and the Almighty sat on the top of the facade as the chairman took in the rest of the building. Several kitchens, fully stocked; rooms for people to sleep in if they fall on hard times; a sanctuary of such regal stature as to elicit praise upon entering; all in the open air, for there was no threat of weather ruining what God had built. A mighty cathedral on a foundation wrought from the most glorious bedrock, pure marble laced with gems of every sort.


The chairman spent days remarking and praising the Lord for His work in him, then looked at the horizon and stuttered. “Lord, Great Almighty Jesus, My Liege... what are those?” he asked.


The things in question were shambling to and fro; a blown-out window here, a shattered door there, pine straw everywhere. They fluttered like rain-soaked leaves in a slight wind. Wails reverberated around the chairman's cathedral, bouncing off the gilded walls. It was a horror to see. The Almighty's face fell.


“My cathedral in you is now so luxurious, you do not recognize what you once were. These shambling masses are what I see My people as, every day. You and I started on My cathedral in you such a long time ago, but you stopped letting Me in. These people haven't called upon Me yet to build in them until they are complete; that is why I have come to you, My child – you have a mission. Your cathedral has been built, now it must shine. Here,” the Almighty produced a light from within His chest, “The bell tower on the north side. Light it, child.”


The chairman took the light, carrying it gingerly to the tower, placing it in its cradle. The Creator said, “It's a shame this is all a large metaphor, but I had to say it in a way you'll understand. I am with you, child. But know that it is My work in you that must be brought to completion in your life, not your work in others. I've given you this cathedral; come back to me and we will maintain it. Go, my child, and shine.”


the chairman awoke on the steps of the church; the same decrepit building as before. He didn't know what was to become of his life, but he knew he was no longer worried about its direction. He went back home, to his single bedroom apartment, and looked for another church in the region. There was a more recent building put up near to his apartment, and he went that Sunday. He was not content to watch with apathy as this church languished, but he would do everything he could to be a conduit for the Spirit. He was still very young, but he already felt significance and victory in his stead.


For God doesn't measure victory in the building's revenue, but in the community's growth. And God was going to build a mighty cathedral in everyone, this chairman knew.



He just knew. 

In Defense of the Pursuit

A long piece, and one that has been simmering in my head for quite a while, shaping my day-to-day life. It pertains quite specifically to the masculine nature, which I feel I’ve been missing for much of my life. In my choices in life, I've left danger and uncertainty to others, ascribing instead to vent my ideologies and understandings to the abstract – so that nobody can directly challenge my knowledge or understanding. This has led me to be quite amateur in the standard masculine field of experience – not devoid of any particular skill (though I lament the inability to wield and understand many heavy and light tools, and have a myriad of skills I am devoid of knowledge of), but rather an innocence in the field altogether. Much like a child initially shies away from things, I've developed a deep-rooted sense of security in pacifism.


In short, I saw the masculine nature of danger and responsibility and became frightened with it. I hid – and because I was quite amazing at avoiding responsibility, I excelled at hiding. I don't know how, but at any possible moment in my childhood that responsibility beckoned, I saw it as the possibility of mistake and cried “begone!” and hid.


In later years, I subconsciously realized this fear – and parodied it in my life. Instead of hiding and being afraid of people (who were a prime source of responsibility and possibility of failure), I took a farcical approach to my fear: if I was afraid of people thinking me a failure, I would let down all preconceptions and portray myself as the failure. I would be the savior of the outcast by being happy to be the outcast.


I wasn't a very intelligent young boy.


Here I had a deeply rooted fear of challenge, and a misconception that my belittling would be my freedom. This persisted through half my high school career, then I learned about achievement. Professor Otieno was the Computer Science teacher at the school, but to me he was so much more. If you want to sign up for a computer class and have life lessons bestowed on you as an added bonus, this man will give that. In the four years at Mount Pisgah, this man's imbued me with the self-confidence that I desperately needed – but never knew I did. He was very blunt; whereas other professors did not feel the need to invest in a student's mental complications, Mr. O reveled in embracing my social ineptitude and was a source of consistent and profound comfort and support. He would always tell me to think more of myself, and he will always rank among the most influential people of my life. I get the feeling his and my lives are not yet through influencing each other, and I am anxious for the day he can continue to influence me.


This is all to say that though I missed out on much of my developmental understanding in the social field, one thing was not lost: self confidence. Were it not for Mr. O (and various other titans in my life), I would not have structured my self-worth on something other than worldly things.


So high school ended, and I found myself alone. I picked up project after project, each new one challenging myself. I found life in these challenges – finally the ineptitude of my youth was being addressed in the Spring and Summer of my collegiate years. It was in these years that I came to a realization: in my youth, I had no pursuit.


A man requires a pursuit: that's one of the many reasons Christ is so appealing to me. My pursuit for Him ends with my last breath, and so he will always be a source of life for me. A man's pursuit is his life source. A project is a source, and I've engaged in many. Every project I start challenges me, and I’ve yet to finish many of them. My current project is also my most expansive, and most daunting: a narrated storyboard, utilizing animated images in an aesthetic manner to provide an engaging story. I'm alive with this pursuit now, but I know it won't last. This is not an end, but a means to an end.


A man needs pursuit. I lust for that pursuit. Pornography isn't a pursuit. Porn is the opposite – you sit, and it comes to you. Porn is the taste of orange juice and milk in my mouth, because every time I look at it, I stick another knife in my pursuit. I stick another knife in my love, in my passion, in my Jesus.


Porn, and all other sins, also damages your woman. That singularly spectacular woman that Christ Created and placed on Earth, weaving your and her life together intentionally, as if to say, “My child, here is your pursuit; this is the passion I have placed in this world for you to lust after, as I lust after you. Pursue her, as you and I pursue one another.”


I hate that porn has been in my life, and still slings to me. Because of unrighteous lust, I have been clouded. I cannot trust myself to pursue a woman, because the responsibility of such a pursuit daunts me. I have thought myself able to pursue, and been shamed into admitting I am not.


But I will not end this on a depressing note. Instead, I stand currently hopeful and expectant of freedom. I wake every day telling myself the best day of my life is today, and since then, I’ve been raising the bar on the best day of my life every day of my life. The pursuit of love and God is not dead, friends. Find a pursuit, something you are daunted by. Do it. Engage, pursue, and let that pursuit drive you.


Because a man without a pursuit is a lion in a cage. Eventually, the lion doesn't think he's a lion anymore. The lion is dangerous, and so it it kept in the cage. A lion in a cage, however, is not a lion; this large, prideful animal is not large, or prideful. The pursuit in its eyes has drowned in the drab of its cage. It longs for the plains it cannot remember.



This lion has its key, but it feels powerless – not being able to lunge, it doesn't know how; not being able to prowl, to hunt, to pursue... it forgets how and thinks it cannot. And this lion, should it be set free, will go awry many times. It may die in its pursuit. But in dying, the lion will die knowing it is a lion. Brothers, the pursuit awaits.

Think of Nothing but the Shivering of Your Soul Against the Cold.

Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.


From the fire, you were born,
The heat comforts you as you bask in the warm,
Your parents teach you much, and much they warn,
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
A strange urgence and once you ignore,
For learning is to be done and understanding to bore,
Independence is a light on a city, and you soon ignore,
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You are largely alone, you feel a sliver of warm abating,
You think it not harsh and keep on changing,
A girl soon finds your eyes and a coldness is weighting,
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
This girl stoke your fire and feed your flame,
This cold you felt of loss and fear, she will make lame.
Yes, a romance is what is missing in your game!
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
Her sex is amazing, but a coldness creeps in,
you're hearing a howling against the bedsprings' din,
you look up and see the frost spin...
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
Indeed, her body wafts less of that glorious heat,
With each kiss, her magic continues to wean...
This girl is not sating you, a chill comes to scream.
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
Another will fill it, how about ten on a screen?
But being alone lets the chill surge into your stream!
You find another girl, but she is not keen to the screen -
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You seek another body to keep you warm at night,
But the perversion makes you afraid to let intimacy be nigh -
For what if you want your girl to be another actress to porn's blight?
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You shiver every day, but hold fast alone -
This burden is for you to carry and atone,
Will God forgive if you celibize to your grave?
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You know a woman will not warm you, but the frost bites,
Your soul shrivels as you find hopelessness in its might,
You think of your legacy, and how it will be thrown from light;
Think of nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You recall your parents' urgence, and understand the message:
You thought not of your soul until the cold set a shiverage.
You are held back from your purpose and design by a grip:

Lust.

Think nothing but the shivering of your soul against the cold.
You will find a warmth in the hope of the Eternal Fire Bold.
I find victory in a fire that will engulf this little world;
I find freedom in a Savior that proclaims hope into my hold.
I find Him in the intervention of His placing men into my mold.
I find a community of support to tackle the hell of sin on Earth.
I find peace, love, understanding, breakthrough... and worth.

The Oak and the Mangroves: A Cautionary Tale

A tropical storm rages off of Florida's coast – the outer arms of its impeding torrents and slip winds curl just shy of the storm as the waves churn more fierce – much like the first voices decrying persecution and awaiting the resounding chaos of those who take up their banner. These waves are the cavalry, sweeping away any animal or sprout small and unfortunate enough to be caught in its pull. A single Oak stands on this shore, embedded in a rock older than the shore itself – the granite older than the grains of sand which finally exposed it to the sun – standing obstinate against the waves. Its roots have dominated the rock, much like a man dominates his theology. Its trunk is battered, with many scores and cuts from the flotsam of the waves.


As the tree overlooks its newest adversary, it is reminded of the historic storms it survived when younger; though every year melds together, it and its friends were contented to stand against the storms, crying out in the gale for the storms to stop. Their numbers were thinned, and he was left alone – the strongest Oak in the world. Its trunk several feet thick and its limbs reaching vast and unyielding, the tree braces for the impacts.


Elsewhere further down the coast, a single Mangrove looks to the storm with bravery. If the Mangrove was alone, it would indeed have need to be frightened; much like any normal human, this Mangrove understands that he cannot stand against much alone. Its roots are wide and deep, but being so deep in the water leaves him exposed. But he is not afraid.


As the wind pushed him toward the shore, and the waves push him up, his roots drag and brace against his reason for bravery: the same rock the Oak has pierced and rooted deeply into, the Mangrove has dug into as well, though this rock has not been shown the sun lately. The wind pushes him back, and as he sways, his sister behind him holds him – as does the three other brothers around her, and the ten behind them, and the fifty behind them, leading to a swamp of Mangroves extending for miles. He is emboldened further by this community.


The first wave hits, and engulfs all the forward trees. Their leaves rip away, and the wave pierces through to the later ranks. However, as it cuts through the trees, each tree absorbs a certain portion of the wave's power, completely subduing the rage of the sea. It is not time for celebration, for there are more waves, and fearsome winds, to face in short time.


The storm hits in fierce bitterness, howling against the Mangroves. All of them are embedded in the granite beneath, and the waves are mollified and proven ineffective against the trees of the rock, standing together. The Mangrove in the front was broken off in the waves, thrown back through its brothers and sisters, and goes flying with the wave. It is in a panic, and reaches out for help, for the community it once loved. As the wave is crushed, the Mangrove sweeps in with the swell into another group of Mangroves; it grafts with the network of roots and branches in time, but it is safe against the storm – connected to the rock underneath by the trees surrounding him.


The storm is gone inland now, and the sister of the uprooted Mangrove is reminded of the Oak that he spoke of; she looks down the shore in its direction, and quickly averts her gaze. The Oak indeed lived a strong life, but in its will to prove itself against the storms of its life, it bit into the rock, crushing and warping it, until it no longer was the rock it knew as a young sapling. The Oak faltered in the storm; its trunk burst apart under the weight of the wind against its proud branches and the waves against its length.


The canopy was nowhere to be seen, but the trunk was a legacy of violence. The scored and gnarled length was on its side, its top a shredded mass of splinters and sap. The rock it so tightly clung to and never wavered from cracked and fractured, bursting apart predictably – but unthinkable to the oak. Its wreckage was all over the shore, and the waves came in to pull away the dust of the rock, to bring back to the sea.


Occasionally this dust would make it over to the Mangroves, and the sea would ask, “Is this not your rock, which your copse so tightly clings to?”


The Mangroves respond, “That dust does not belong to my rock; our rock gives us strength through each other. None of us claim to own the rock, or be more tight into the rock, and yet all of us are embedded.”



Don't be an Oak. This God doesn't need you to prove something, He needs you to stand against the storm. This analogy is not perfect, because obviously trees cannot uproot and go to sea, but let us assume that the sea's mercurial nature suffices that defect in the analogy.

A Post that Applies to You 1/365 Days of the Year

I am 20 years old today, in the... Gregorian, Julian, Persian, Indian Civil and Hebrew Calendars. I'm 21 in the Islamic calendar.... I've seen 247 full moons, and 7,305 days.


It took me a long while to become at peace with my birthday being so close to Christmas - simply being near to this holiday means I miss out on the simple joy of a birthday party of any regular scheduling. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday party along with the prior three years' (which I had forgotten to celebrate) in June two years ago.


It is very much a difficult thing to talk about, because the humility culture I was raised in told me not to complain about my birthday being shafted by the birth of our Lord and Savior. Thus I kept silent about many of my misgivings, and I can attribute a great deal of my cynicism to the fact that, since my birthdays were always lesser affairs, I was quickly disillusioned to the thought of celebration. Or, perhaps the correct phrase is “I was quickly turned off...” no matter.


Thus, my birthday's always been spent being the most corporately awake with the rest of my family on any given day, with no party, while other people have parties and revelries on their own days. Thus, as an outsider looking in on these celebrations, I must make a quite apt observation of the moment.


Observe the average person celebrating their own birthday. It seems that they are celebrating themselves, but in reality many of my friends are celebrating the fact that God gave them breath and charged them with the task of spreading the Gospel. But, as with practically any good thing God intends, we (and by “we”, I intend to accuse the average celebrant; if you feel this does not apply to you, then by all means drop this accusation from your offense) quickly make it more garish, lavish, and selfish. No longer is God in the picture, but simply.... “me”.



I will change my scope to another target, to avoid playing the “selfish world” fiddle again, as its strings are so overplayed as to make its melody cliché. My birthday this year will be mostly spent with the fine people at Passion City Church. Serving alongside them as we park, guide and lead people to and in worship. I think this will be a quite fantastic day, precluding an equally fantastic year, friends.

Suffering, and the Video Game effect

Today a frustrating concept came to mind, considering the suffering and pain in this world – specifically, that wrought by one human upon another. The Boston Marathon bomber was found rather fast, and his demographic was sadly what I was expecting: nineteen, white. Several images flashed to mind, most of them of the way violence is portrayed in the media. Then I hit a roadblock; surely CNN and Fox news do not portray violence in a good light. Thus, I cut out a great portion of people from my search; most people's perusal of the media ends with the big news outlets. Let's say 25% of America only sees violence in a negative light – the elderly, executives, and more sensible of the population (of which I don't count myself part of).

I then further delineated the sources of “positive” violence – comic humor is often slapstick (though the sickening violence portrayed often is dulled by the artist's brush), video game action gets more and more graphic with every new generation of gaming, and practically every major television pundit has humor many would deem unwise to display on their network.

Another clarification was then needed; what separated me and the roughly 330 million Americans from the small amount of horrifying monsters we call murderers? All of the examples I brought up are engaged with by millions of people an hour. So, I further narrowed the reasons for this violence – certain media outlets are far more edgy than others – some I don't even know about. Now we're getting closer to a source of this.

I recalled back in 2009 a game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I didn't enjoy the series, so I didn't buy it. I hard stories of a certain, unrelated part of the game (fully passable, no achievements or glory for finishing it) which had you go through an airport murdering everyone. I saw a friend play it, and was pretty well mortified for the first thirty seconds. The scene begins with you and six of your allies walking into a pretty well-crowded checking area; twenty or so people were between you and the metal detectors, all in a jumbled mess, with no real order. As your weapons become visible, and for the instant before your allies open fire, the game silences everything, and everyone's face has a conglomeration of horror and confusion. Then the slugs start burying themselves in the first few people, piercing through into the next people behind them. As the screams erupt, I noticed a child falling to the ground with blood spurting into the air. The next minute and a half my friend walked through the airport, destroying hundreds of people. The music was intense, and your allies were hurrying you on, talking about a deadline to make.

I couldn't keep watching it. My friend kept playing, and I was horrified. I asked him how, and he responded, “it's just a game... this isn't real”. And it hit me: for 330 million people, it's just a game. Most of this world can separate the game from reality. But that game sold over 10 million copies. The way people share games, I’d say this game has been played by over seventy-five million people in America. I bite my nails in concern over the five or thirty people who cannot see the divide between game and reality – whose lives, effected solely by their willing isolation and indoctrination by a media unaware of its effect, find no divide in their only experience with the world (violence and immortality of the player) and the real world which the media mocks.

“But JHBlancs, you're being a parent. Video games don't make people violent, there are other factors! Leave video games alone, man.” (read: let me be comfortable in my denial.)

My friend, You are probably alright. I'd guess the demographic that reads my blog would be the demographic which would not commit an act of violence. I'm not even saying that video games are the only source of this condoning; it is in the jokes between people, in the humor over this world. Violence, when the catch is made that “nobody is harmed permanently”, is hilarious in this day and age. This generation finds a thrill in the escapism of the game and the humor. It is when the very few decide to enact that humor in real life that people back up, look at each other, and call him a monster.

And that is the crux of the matter. It is the small bit of monster in all of us, the once-in-a-blue-moon monstrous behavior that finds its way through the darker channels of the internet and media to these potential murderers. It is the cold shoulder we give to that one random person, and 99% of the time goes nowhere. But that 1% of the time, the rejection sticks with the person.

So where to go from here? A bomb seems to have set this country askew; a spray of bullets did the same thing last December. Through all of this, this world seems to be coming less stable; as if the violence perpetrated in our own lives sinks into the soil. Iran suffered a 7.8 magnitude earthquake; China just got hit with a 6.6 magnitude an hour ago. The vegetation recedes as deserts grow. The life of this planet seems to be choked out by the inevitability of climate and the stubborn advance of humanity.

In this darkness, oh could there shine a hero?

Yes. You. Me. We cannot change the Earth's attitude, though we can change the people's. We can show that a bullet will not change this world, nor will a bomb. An Earthquake will not shatter the soul, though it may break the bone and body. So how do we effect change?

In a word, grace. Do not let the evil push you to apathy. Do not let the hatred in this world bring you to nihilism. Stand firm against a wave of hate, meet rage with open arms and kindness. Find the broken, and show them a firm foundation. Be the change you want to see. You don't even have to be Christian, just be humane. Don't honk the horn when you're angry; don't ignore an angry face; do not leave debts unsettled; do not ignore a person going through hardships; do not be apathetic.

Just because we're broken does not mean that two or three people cannot operate together to become a force for good. With a God behind us, we can change the world. Or, if you wish to do this without one, then go with a group of friends and show kindness to strangers. Either way, the challenge of our generation is to shine kindness in a world of dark hatred. 

Glory of God - I Am A Door Holder.

Hey guys, I don't commonly urge things upon people, as I usually don't involve myself with things that are both beneficial to the soul and universally enjoyed. Passion City's the difference. This night at 6:45, i was outside in the rain parking cars, and i had the most intimate moment with God that i've had in a while. While a particularly intense parking situation (bus was coming, cars were piling up, nobody was moving), God came to me, and filled me with joy.

The cold rain turned warm, and my happiness tripled as i began singing that good old song, I'll Fly Away. I had no rain jacket, and was wet to my skin. The cars went through, and we got in early. As i was a pneumonia magnet, i took off as many layers as i decently could and got my poetry book out, and cranked out a beautiful 5 lines of grace. I saw two of my friends that I haven't seen in a long while, and heard a beautiful message. The exit of the crowd was smoother, due in part to my having a rain jacket then. One the way back home, i listened to Tomlin's "Shepherd Boy" song all the way back, and after dropping him off, proceeded to praise God for the next half hour.

I'm not a hero of the faith,
I'm not as strong as i thought i was,
I'm just a shepher boy,
Singin' to a choir of burnin' lights...

Guys, my week is crowned by my being on the parking team, bringing God the glory rain or shine. Being a Door Holder has strengthened me in my walk with God, and I've grown to love him more and more every week i go. The amazing part is, the tougher my job is as a parking team member, the better - because that means more people are there. If you're not a Door Holder, Then let this be the one time I urge you to drop everything you do and become one. His glory shines through you, friends. It *shines*.